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732 books match the query 'Indigenous' and 5 start with a non-letter

cover of "A Son of the Forest" and Other Writings

"A Son of the Forest" and Other Writings

William Apess

University of Massachusetts Press, 1997

Designed especially for classroom use, this book brings together the best-known works of the nineteenth-century Indian writer William Apess, including the first extended autobiography by a Native American. The text is drawn from On Our Own Ground, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book. Barry O'Connell has written a new introduction for this abbreviated edition.
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cover of "For the Good of Their Souls": Performing Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Mohawk Country

"For the Good of Their Souls"

Performing Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Mohawk Country

William B. Hart

University of Massachusetts Press, 2020

In 1712, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts opened its mission near present-day Albany, New York, and began baptizing residents of the nearby Mohawk village Tiononderoge, the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. Within three years, about one-fifth of the Mohawks in the area began attending services. They even adapted versions of the service for use in private spaces, which potentially opened a door to an imagined faith community with the Protestants.

Using the lens of performance theory to explain the ways in which the Mohawks considered converting and participating in Christian rituals, historian William B. Hart contends that Mohawks who prayed, sang hymns, submitted to baptism, took communion, and acquired literacy did so to protect their nation's sovereignty, fulfill their responsibility of reciprocity, serve their communities, and reinvent themselves. Performing Christianity was a means of "survivance," a strategy for sustaining Mohawk life and culture on their terms in a changing world.
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cover of "Good News from New England" by Edward Winslow: A Scholarly Edition

"Good News from New England" by Edward Winslow

A Scholarly Edition

Kelly Wisecup

University of Massachusetts Press, 2014

First published in 1624, Edward Winslow's Good News from New England chronicles the early experience of the Plimoth colonists, or Pilgrims, in the New World. For several years Winslow acted as the Pilgrims' primary negotiator with New England Algonquians, including the Wampanoag, Massachusett, and Narragansett Indians. During this period he was credited with having cured the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit, one of the colonists' most valuable allies, of an apparently life-threatening illness, and he also served as the Pilgrims' chief agent in England.

It was in the context of all of these roles that Winslow wrote Good News in an attempt to convince supporters in England that the colonists had established friendly relations with Native groups and, as a result, gained access to trade goods. Although clearly a work of diplomacy, masking as it did incidents of brutal violence against Indians as well as evidence of mutual mistrust, the work nevertheless offers, according to Kelly Wisecup, a more complicated and nuanced representation of the Pilgrims' first years in New England and of their relationship with Native Americans than other primary documents of the period.

In this scholarly edition, Wisecup supplements Good News with an introduction, additional primary texts, and annotations to bring to light multiple perspectives, including those of the first European travelers to the area, Native captives who traveled to London and shaped Algonquian responses to colonists, the survivors of epidemics that struck New England between 1616 and 1619, and the witnesses of the colonists' attack on the Massachusetts.
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cover of "Still They Remember Me": Penobscot Transformer Tales, Volume 1

"Still They Remember Me"

Penobscot Transformer Tales, Volume 1

Carol A. Dana, Margo Lukens, and Conor M. Quinn

University of Massachusetts Press, 2021

Newell Lyon learned the oral tradition from his elders in Maine's Penobscot Nation and was widely considered to be a "raconteur among the Indians." The thirteen stories in this new volume were among those that Lyon recounted to anthropologist Frank Speck, who published them in 1918 as Penobscot Transformer Tales. Transcribed for the first time into current Penobscot orthography and with a new English translation, this instructive and entertaining story cycle focuses on the childhood and coming-of-age of Gluskabe, the tribe's culture hero. Learning from his grandmother Woodchuck, Gluskabe applies lessons that help shape the Wabanaki landscape and bring into balance all the forces affecting human life. These tales offer a window into the language and culture of the Penobscot people in the early twentieth century.

In "Still They Remember Me," stories are presented in the Penobscot language and English side-by-side, coupled with illustrations from members of the tribal community. For the first time, these stories are accessible to a young generation of Penobscot language learners and scholars of Native American literatures at all levels, from grade school to graduate school.
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cover of “These Are Our Roots”: The History of the K’iche’ People as Told by Lords of the Tamub’ and Ilokab’

“These Are Our Roots”

The History of the K’iche’ People as Told by Lords of the Tamub’ and Ilokab’

transcription, translation, and commentary by Allen J. Christenson

University Press of Colorado, 2026

In “These Are Our Roots”,  Allen J. Christenson translates and analyzes historical documents composed by Tamub’ and Ilokab’ nobles of the K’iche’ Maya, who ruled much of the Guatemalan highlands until their lands were invaded by Spanish conquistadors in 1524. Complete original English translations of three Tamub’ texts and a new translation of the “Title of the Ilokab’” reveal how K’iche’ nobility strategically appropriated Christian elements from Dominican missionary texts while maintaining their Indigenous worldview. These documents served multiple purposes: legally establishing land rights, asserting nobility status, preserving cultural identity, and claiming religious legitimacy by positioning themselves as descendants of biblical figures—a sophisticated response to Spanish colonization that balanced accommodation and resistance through literacy, which had become a crucial tool for Indigenous elites navigating the colonial system.

The Tamub’ and Ilokab’ branches of the K’iche’ people have generally been overshadowed by their well-known Kaweq brethren, who wrote such literature masterpieces as the Popol Vuh and the Title of Totonicapán. But it is the voices relegated to the shadows of history that share views of events from different perspectives and whisper about what really happened behind the scenes—family jealousies, political rivalries, and delicious gossip about the great and the good who tend to focus on their own self-aggrandizing stories. “These Are Our Roots” is a valuable scholarly contribution to Maya studies and ethnohistory that makes these important primary sources more accessible to students and scholars.

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